Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

“Thank you, Corporal.”

“For nothing, Major, and we are going to rest another half-hour, then push forward, and we will go through or under or over the border fence.”

The smile that greeted Gaz was sardonic, almost mocked him. He had not yet read the man nor knew what reaction to expect from him as they came close to the wire, and having the pistol in his belt was reassurance of a sort. The kids stayed back.

The Norwegian brought two collapsible stools from his vehicle, and a thermos and other gear.

“What’s necessary, if it’s for the long haul.”

“Appreciated.”

Knacker had been sitting on the grass, under birch trees and within sight of the wire fence, but hidden from view. One patrol had gone by, a four-wheel drive vehicle with only a pair in the front, and he had stayed still and it had not slowed. He sat on the stool, had the same view, but the Norwegian was not satisfied with their cover. From a rucksack, he took two tunics and a jar of camouflage cream. Helped Knacker off with his coat, emptied the pockets, folded it, packed it away. Gave a hand for him to shrug into the military tunic with the camouflage shapes of general NATO markings, and did the same for himself. Opened the jar and dug with a couple of fingers. Knacker offered his face, was daubed. The Norwegian’s fingers moved briskly across Knacker’s features. He recognised an old smell and the taste of the cream when his upper lip was done and his tongue flickered to it involuntarily. A grin, ironic, from the Norwegian.

“Familiar? Back to the good old days? Not recently?”

“Used to, in the Irish times.”

They had been happy old days, not just good. Pretty much anyone who had made a name, positive or negative, awesome or disgraced, had served in the Province, cut their teeth there. The experiences were used as a raw kindergarten, before they’d all dispersed, gone on to confront supposed Russian opponents or those from ISIS, home and abroad. And pretty much anyone would have recalled those days as among the best that life had so far offered. Most of his time in Northern Ireland had been running assets, meeting in darkened pub car parks, or in remote lay-bys; on a few occasions he had worn uniform, done CamCream on face and hands, a Browning 9mm on a webbing belt, and had gone out to do some ditch time, or get buried in a hedgerow with a clear view of a farmhouse. Remembered all the stuff about cows’ curiosity, and sheep gathering in a half-moon and staring at the camera lenses and the binoculars, and the damn dogs that roamed ahead of the farmer when he came each morning to walk his parcels of land and would have a pocketful of enmity to carry with him. There was no danger here, not to him, Knacker was not threatened. Gaz was. He understood, after reflection, that the Norwegian – no name required and no ranking – would be an officer in the PST organisation, or might have been from E14, but he had no need for detail. Sufficient to realise that the man would have known as much about the life of the fence as would a train-spotter at the end of the platform at Didcot, knew every scheduled engine on the down line, and the up. Knacker did not mind help, was not stubbornly resistant… and who cared, who gave a tuppenny toss, because the era of Knacker’s Yard was wrapped in cling foil, gone in the can. Did not have to be told, but had the minutiae of danger for Gaz explained to him, a soft voice and insufficient to frighten the songbirds that flipped close to them.

“What we are hearing makes a picture.”

Gazing at the wire and noting the camera and the cables that would flash alarms if yanked, Knacker followed the progress of a pair of chaffinches, brightly coloured, pretty and confident, who perched on the barbs coiled at the top. And listened.

“It is confusing. We have nothing from the police networks, but have material from the confidential networks of FSB. An officer is listed as missing. He is a major, Lavrenti Volkov. The circumstances are vague. There are also reports of a foreign asset having crossed the frontier, and met by a nonentity couple, drug dealers. More reports indicate that a force of a hundred border guards will be deployed on the border within the next hour… May I ask if it has been an aim of your organisation to bring a prisoner into Norway and…”

“No bloody way.”

“The prisoner being taken to the border is an assumption based on what we know.”

“About as far from reality as is possible to stretch.”

“A prisoner brought with coercion to the border, and across it, would signal a grave and embarrassing situation. Repercussions would follow.”

“Our guy, he has no mandate.”

“Your man’s brief, as I understand, is to report on locations and schedules, not more.”

“Or do the business there.”

“I have been, perhaps unwisely, selective with the information I have passed back to my superiors. If a prisoner were brought across the fence there would be a greater fallout than if such a prisoner and your agent were to be intercepted on the far side of the fence. It would be bad, would destabilise the narrow agreements that are in place. Nothing then could be covert, hidden. Is there a situation where your agent might believe it within his remit to bring over a prisoner?”

“Absolutely bloody not.”

“Effectively to kidnap a major of FSB would provoke a very considerable issue.”

“Not authorised. Would be in flagrant violation of any instructions given him.”

“Why then would he act in such a way?”

“Don’t know. I’ll take his fucking balls off, watch me as I do it.”

“So, we wait and we see.”

They did not have long to wait. A small convoy of military trucks laboured up the track parallel to the wire. An officer dismounted from a jeep. Uniforms jumped down from the tailgates. And a dog handler came with them, and a machine-gun with a forward bi-pod. Orders were given and a field of fire back towards a forest track was identified. The convoy moved on and cigarettes were lit, and weapons were armed. Knacker’s hand, as if he needed comfort, went to his trouser pocket.

The coin was easy to find. Lightweight metal and frayed at the edges and with the indents on its surfaces almost eroded in spite of the girls’ hard work at cleaning it. His fingers turned it over… He reflected. He was the intelligence officer, painted and was crouched over his stool, and he wondered how many times that man, the keepsake in his imagination, had taken up a position within sight of the Wall, had been there damn near two millennia before and had watched for the return of his asset… And on the other side, hidden behind the Wall, behind the fence and the tree line, was the sector’s garrison commander. He saw himself in both roles, held the coin between two fingers, and one would win in the next several hours and one would lose – and neither would ever have believed they could trust an agent, an asset, to do as he was bloody told. He let the coin fall and it was subsumed amongst his small change. One to win and one to lose, predictable for both Knacker and his adversary.

The sea was millpond smooth.

The wind had gone, a little sunlight pitched through the cloud. Fee and Alice disentangled their arms, stood apart, as if they were at work.

“The betting?” Alice asked.

“Turning out to be that sort of day. I’m taking a no-show.”

Not often in their lives, tramping in the wake of Knacker and running affairs from the Yard, that they knew failure. Fee had no trust that their man would be on board. The instructions had been for the minimum of phone contact firstly from their man, and then from their boat. Taking it into Murmansk with the hold full of red king crabs, gourmet stuff, had been a master stroke, and having it there as an evacuation vehicle, along with decent documentation, were matters for pride.